Measuring or detecting molecules or analytes in samples is a rapidly growing demand in environmental, medical, agricultural, chemical and industrial sectors. In the environmental sector, such sensors or detectors may be employed to measure certain molecule contents inside city water or reservoirs. For the medical sector, such devices may be employed for measuring or detecting biomolecules as disease markers in situ and/or continuously.
It is common in the medical field to measure the concentration of molecules in fluids obtained from patients. The demand for new tests of blood or urine chemistry has increased rapidly, with resultant growth of centralized testing laboratories. The current performance of quantitative diagnostic or screening tools may be largely restricted to centralized laboratories because of the need for long assay times, and relatively bulky, complex and expensive analytical equipment, as well as highly trained personnel. If a wider range of the diagnostic and health monitoring tools may be run simpler, more inexpensively and at the point of care or in the home healthcare, the health of millions patients may be improved annually, particularly for old people who often need regular health monitoring or check up but have difficulties to visit the healthcare facilities.
Therefore, there is a need for a simple, compact, smart, robust and inexpensive sensor element which can provide high quality results.